How To Pick A Career In Finance

Summary

The video compares finance careers by responsibilities, competitiveness, compensation potential, and typical working hours. The speaker emphasizes that experiences can vary substantially by employer, team, and manager, and recommends researching specific roles and speaking with people in the industry.

Career Areas Discussed

Corporate Finance

Corporate finance is described as generally closer to a 9-to-5 schedule.

• Financial planning and analysis (FP&A): Builds financial forecasts and budgets, compares actual results with projections, and analyzes variances.
• Strategic finance: Supports internal business decisions, including pricing, unit economics, headcount, and project evaluation.
• Business development: Works on external initiatives and partnerships. The speaker gives a collaboration between Supreme and The North Face on a clothing collection as an example.

Wealth Management

Wealth management provides broader financial planning for wealthy individuals and families, including investment strategy, tax planning, and estate planning.

Hours across the wealth- and asset-management areas discussed are estimated at 40–65+ hours per week, depending on the role and employer.

Asset Management

Asset management primarily manages investment strategies, often for institutions such as pension and trust funds, though individuals and families may also be clients.

Areas mentioned include traditional asset management and alternative asset management, such as private equity, private credit, and hedge funds. The speaker also mentions fixed-income instruments and “government stocks” in the subtitles.

The speaker characterizes asset management as generally toward the higher end of the stated 40–65+ weekly hours range, compared with wealth management.

Corporate Banking

Corporate banking serves large corporate clients’ ongoing financial needs. The speaker contrasts this with investment banking, which is associated with major transactions and corporate milestones such as mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and raising capital.

Typical hours are described as 50–60 per week, with potential for good pay and career growth alongside a more balanced schedule than many high-finance roles. The speaker also notes that corporate banking may offer networking opportunities at banks that provide both corporate and investment banking services, potentially supporting an internal move.

Commercial and Retail Banking

The speaker distinguishes these areas by client size:

• Corporate banking serves very large clients.
• Commercial banking serves small and medium-sized businesses.
• Retail banking serves individuals.

Services become more complex as client institutions grow.

High Finance

High finance includes direct investment, investment banking, private credit, hedge funds, and sales and trading.

These roles may involve 70–90 hours per week, or sometimes more than 100. The speaker cautions that the workload can be exhausting and urges prospective candidates to consider the sacrifices to sleep, social life, and personal time rather than romanticizing the work.

Key Figures and Guidance

• Corporate finance: generally closer to 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
• Wealth and asset management: approximately 40–65+ hours per week, depending on the role and employer.
• Corporate banking: approximately 50–60 hours per week.
• Some high-finance roles: 70–90 hours or more than 100 hours per week.
• Asset- and wealth-management roles can be competitive, but may be less intensely competitive than investment banking, private equity, or hedge funds for candidates from a broad range of universities.

Cautions and Disclosures

• Hours, pay, responsibilities, and career experiences vary by company, department, team, and supervisor. The figures are presented as generalizations, not guarantees.
• Viewers are encouraged to research individual roles and speak with industry professionals.
• The speaker recommends proceeding cautiously before choosing a career with very long hours.
• No explicit “not financial advice” disclaimer is given.

Presenter

The presenter is an unnamed speaker on the Your Finance Brother channel.